Saskatchewan conservatives are getting cranky. At last night’s Finance Committee meeting on the omnibus bill, MP Randy Hoback exposed me as being a New Democrat who writes “garbage” (as this blog’s readers already know).

Full video of the meeting is available here, with my presentation starting two hours in.

UPDATE (June 1): Hoback’s attack has been covered by Macleans, CBC and CPAC.

Comments

Comment from Ken HoweTime: May 31, 2012, 8:25 am

Surely this could be rebroadcast as an NDP (or Liberal or Green party) attack ad. Just the Hoback and Weir stuff: the denunciations by other committee members and McCarthy stuff is pretty much redundant. People who saw it could never vote Conservative again.

Comment from Francis FullerTime: May 31, 2012, 12:22 pm

Erin – A further piece of evidence in support of the CDN $ price / of oil relationship may be found in the recent trajectory of the two.

At the beginning of May WTI was priced at $106 USD. Today’s futures closed at $86.65. During the same period the CDN $ went from $1.01 to $0.968.

Correlation is not causation but there appears to be face validity in the claim of a link between the two entities.

Are we are shocked at Randy Hoback, this right along the lines of a dictatorship? Obviously they planned this attack on Erin, he was reading right from his notes.

Would a liberal party member ever be questioned in such a manner? Would a chamber of commerce rep with a conservative membership ever be asked about their politics? Of course not, because the rest of us outside the tory bubble actually understand that to have a civilization, means there is more than one way of looking at things. But not this Tory party.

This is good fodder for a campaign ad for sure, sadly, there is so much video, I am sure the NDP will have lots to choose from.

Poor Erin, that was so much crap.

Erin- we do not write garbage, we are and always will be though charged with taking out the garbage on the hill, and also representing and in solidarity with all those workers who are faced with actually doing that for a living.

Erin, you are to be commended for your composure, for your clear concise answers when presented with absurdity, and for your generally excellent work.

Comment from Piccolo EconomistaTime: May 31, 2012, 3:13 pm

The Garbage Can Model

Stronger critics argue that both incrementalism and mixed scanning models assume too much human capacity for rationality. The garbage can model of policy making is probably the most famous of the rebuttals to these rationality-based models. Some theorists have argued that the policy process functions more like a garbage can, in which sits a mix of policy problems and potential solutions. However, this is no ordinary garbage can. Even for its proponents, to have left the garbage can contents in their naturally disordered state would have set the policy analysis on the uncomfortable path to (postmodern) anarchy; so, in their quest for order and causation, they have sought process within the garbage can. There they saw “streams,” “channels,” “communities,” and “windows” through which policies flow, with some policies percolating to the top of the policy agenda and others not. Individuals enter and exit the decision arenas/”garbage cans” such that policy outcomes are the result of decision making within the garbage can. Because of this, policy “outcomes cannot ordinarily be predicted by rational analysis….[so] official presentations of orderly policy with respect to a problem generally represent post-hoc rationalizations of what has been decided largely on a non-rational basis.” That is, policy-makers make policy as best they can and then justify it.
–Inwood, Gregory J. “Understanding Canadian Public Administration” 4th ed. pg.217

Mr. Hoback should tread lightly before calling the works of others “garbage” when his own ideological policy is steeped in it.

Comment from FredTime: June 1, 2012, 12:52 pm

Nicely done Mr. Weir – coolness under pressure. Mr. Hobak is a hateful idiot. Don’t these Reform-Conservatives realize that all of their contempt and hate of Canadians will come back to haunt them with a vengeance? And sooner, rather than later?

Comment from Francis FullerTime: June 1, 2012, 5:50 pm

Erin – I think the Liberal M.P. commenting on CPAC summed up the situation very well in his statement that the media coverage of Hobak’s attack (and the fact of the video going viral) will rebound to the detriment of the CPC. It simply confirms the public’s growing negative perception of the Harper government.

The NDP M.P. also raised a key point with his observation that Hobak’s attack has served to divert public and media attention from analysis of the content of the Omnibus bill. This appears to be a common strategem of the CPC; they attack here to prevent close inspection of what is taking place over there.

You might need that info when being “interrogated” by Hoback the next time you meet. And that’s definitely a significant number of votes.
I unfortunately can’t find any information about Gooding’s shoe size or his favourite ice cream. Hoback might desire that…for further validation of his deep concerns over your credibility.
Especially if he liked “Tutti Frutti” flavour, since that could set off the CPC Gaydar Early Detection system.
And you know what happens then…

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Note: the previous commentary and data should be considered “garbage” and not conflated with “waste” as defined in Sec.1(1) of the Environmental Management Act of BC [SBC 2003]. The previous note is exclusive of the section concerning ice cream or its derivatives…forthwith referred to as “serious business”.